<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>wildflower by dearmoonlight</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378847">wildflower</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmoonlight/pseuds/dearmoonlight'>dearmoonlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Light Angst, M/M, Soulmates AU, but honestly the ending is tooth-rotting fluff, izuleoweek2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:22:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,915</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378847</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmoonlight/pseuds/dearmoonlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Here is what they both know, from late afternoons training and sharing the same changing room: Leo’s back is blooming with white petals.</p><p>He kind of looks like a work of art, Izumi thinks, but saying it aloud might sound narcissistic.</p><p>(Or: the soulmate AU where flowers fill your skin at their touch.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sena Izumi/Tsukinaga Leo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>wildflower</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, about the AU: Flowers bloom into your skin when your soulmate touches you, just like a painting, and keep growing as their love for you gets stronger. They smell like the flower in question to you, but only if the love is reciprocal. That said, please enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>[1.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi grows up with a bud painted in blue, just a spot in the back of his shoulder. It doesn’t hurt when he presses it with a finger, neither does it feel different from the rest of his skin. At first, he thinks of it as flaw, looks at it bitterly with the help of a hand mirror, hides it from the growns up, tries not to think much about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he meets Yuukun. And just a couple of days later, Yuukun’s mother, who has a warm smile and precious green eyes and poppies swirling down all the way from her neck to her hand, the trace losing itself under her blouse. Izumi’s nose wrinkles at the sigh, and (being sincere to the extreme, just as a kid can be without resulting in just a rude remark) he says how untasteful tattoos are.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yuukun laughs. The sound is always pretty, always feels special, always seems reserved only for Izumi in their little world of cameras and long hours of posing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s her mark.” he explains, just before riling his own shirt up a little. There, just above his hip bone, there’s a bud. Just like the one Izumi has, but colored in a darker tone. “This is mine, see? Mum’s prettier, though. She says it’s because dad loved her very, very much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi nods. He doesn’t think he understand, but he’ll ask his own parents about it either. It’d be just the worst if Yuukun starts thinking that </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>can teach him something new.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>[2.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi asks, because curiosity gets the better of him and because he hates not knowing absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>, even at this young age.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Turns out his parents don’t have a mark. There’s no flower in their skin, just as there is no warmth in their eyes when they look at each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi lays awake in bed for a long, long time that night. </span>
</p><p>
  <b>[3.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>As he gets older, it stops mattering. His attention shifts to modelling and dancing and staying in the right weight, and he mostly forgets about all the destined-for-each-other thing. As far as he’s concerned, that’s mostly a waste of time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If you want to be successful in life, there’s no time for meaningless distractions. And he’s set on being the best in everything he does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not even a little bit curious, Micchan?” his mother asks once, as her fingers make distracted paths into his scalp. Izumi shrugs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just a flower.” he says, voice meticulously neutral as they lock eyes through the mirror. His mother is the one that looks more like him, all light colors and dignified facial features. There’s always a kind edge to her smile when it’s directed at him, but it’s an edge nonetheless, and his skin is still young, still paper thin- so she has the power to cut into it, even if that’s not her intention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She kisses his cheek. Whispers how proud she is of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi bleeds.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>[4.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo Tsukinaga smells like something Izumi can’t place, but it’s intoxicating and sweet and makes his head feel hazy. He’s a force to reckon with, too much energy boiling into his body and turning him into a hurricane of a person. Too loud, too annoying. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi sticks to his side, though, because somehow he makes the world a little better, a little brighter, like an ember too stubborn to let itself die down with the rest of the fire. And so, Izumi lets himself bathe in his warmth, gets accustomed to their own little world - where he can be snappy and temperamental, where he can be comfortable in his own skin, where someone makes him feel loved without the need to fill ridiculous expectations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo sings alongside him, and it’s like the spring has come.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes his hand, and flowers bloom under the soft touch of his smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(It should make him feel scared, but somehow Izumi can’t find an inch of fear within himself. Maybe he’s too busy drowning in the green of Leo’s eyes.)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>[5.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>See, the thing is: Izumi didn’t think he could really love someone. Not in the right way. Not like it was supposed to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He has never been good at soothing words and encouragement, because he find them useless - you work hard, you get results, and having someone constantly fretting over you gets you nowhere. And it’s not like he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything, but people tend to assume he’s just heartless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo still reads right through him, and it shouldn’t bother him, but somehow it does. Because it makes him feel naked and raw and into display, his whole being turned into a melody under the caring fingers of a genius. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Leo says “Sena is too kind, so he won’t hurt me”, and says “You’d make a wonderful parent, wouldn’t you?”, and says “You’re beautiful, no matter when” and says, “I love you”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And says, “Don’t push me away, Sena! You always smell like flowers, it fills me with inspiration, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Here is a fact: Izumi’s cologne doesn’t have a floral scent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Here is what they both know, from late afternoons training and sharing the same changing room: Leo’s back is blooming with white petals.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He kind of looks like a work of art, Izumi thinks, but saying it aloud might sound narcissistic.)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>[6.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>The war comes, and it’s nothing more than a massacre. They fight and they hurt and they lose and lose and </span>
  <em>
    <span>lose </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Izumi sometimes has trouble breathing through the way his chest and throat feel too tight. He keeps chasing a dream that seems to be getting fuhrer away by the second, and has trouble telling when did Leo stop running by his side and started to drift away, until his hand is out his grasp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he’s gone, the scent of flowers disappears with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ones painted into Izumi’s body stop growing, stop blooming, even if their blue is still as pure as ever. He makes an habit of looking at himself in the mirror, measuring their size, making sure that no one will ever see them under his uniform.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spends two hours looking up how they are called. Forget-me-not. The irony of it all gets a bitter smile out of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes -mostly when he needs a document signed- Izumi goes to </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>house, heart stammering into his chest. The second a devastated Ruka opens the door, he’s hit with the scent of flowers, like a punch to his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi knows it hasn’t changed, but it still feels different - suffocating and oppressive, tightening around his neck like a rope, making it harder (</span>
  <em>
    <span>impossible</span>
  </em>
  <span>) to breathe. Izumi’s own marks feel itchy, screaming, begging him to come closer, to hug him, to let them live and grow and </span>
  <em>
    <span>love-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>(Izumi gets into the shower once he’s home, and he scrubs at the flowers painted into his skin until it’s red and raw and it burns to touch them, almost as if he could erase them out of existence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The perfect blue shape of their petals mocks him.)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>[7.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a certain kind of grace in the way flowers bloom into Ritsu’s skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi likes to watch it, finds beauty in the way the vines grow into his body, circling his shoulder, swirling down his arm, red roses contrasting with the almost sickly color of his skin. Ritsu is protective of his mark, hisses at people who stare for too long, covers it with his long sleeves and warning glances, but he never complains about it when is just Izumi.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe it’s because, deep down, Ritsu knows he </span>
  <em>
    <span>understands.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s something terrible about the way their eyes lock sometimes, after Ritsu catches him looking at the flowers. And his eyes are as red as the roses, as the liquid dripping from his bleeding heart. He smiles, a lazy gesture that hides too much and tells too little. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you like to show me yours, Secchan?” he says. It’s supposed to be a joke, but doesn’t sound like one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi grimaces. Turns his face, trying to ignore that knowing look of his. The way his stomach turns is almost painful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be ridiculous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <b>[8.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo comes back, and Tsukasa makes him stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi doesn’t know how to feel about that.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>[9.]</b>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not noticeable at first. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi falls back into old habits, old feelings - taking care of Leo is like second nature, letting himself be loved feels harder, but it still happens. Slowly, bitter conversations and tentative glances turn into old banter and slight touches. It feels as if their relationship is growing again from the severed, abused root that the war left behind. And Izumi, who is nothing if not consistent, starts to notice the way the leaves grow, how the vines turn, how new buds are born next to his hips and down his upper arm, encouraged by Leo’s music and the way his lips curve around Izumi’s name, always making it sound like the most special melody that has ever been created.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, he’s afraid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, his fingers shake when he thinks too hard about it, and his gaze gets overcome by the shadows and the doubts. He knows Leo is the same, can see it in the way he hesitates to touch him sometimes, in the lingering glances and the slight marks of bites that go almost unnoticed in his hand after they’ve had a fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But this time, they’re not alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Is so easy to forget how </span>
  <em>
    <span>reliable </span>
  </em>
  <span>their Knights are, how effortless they make it to trust them, how healing Naru’s smile is, how willing Ritsu is to intervene and keep them together, how Tsukasa’s mere presence seem to erase their past mistakes and create a new path for all of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their third year goes by, and their bond keeps getting tighter, but it doesn’t feel like a warning around his neck anymore - nothing more than a security rope impeding the fall. Izumi breathes in Leo’s scent sometimes, too aware of the flowers, of the fact that it still smells like home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, for the first time in months, he thinks: I love him. And the second it crosses his head, like he could read his mind, Leo lets himself fall all over his lap, just over the kotatsu’s blanket, mouth full of complains about their next concert and how the music won’t just </span>
  <em>
    <span>flow </span>
  </em>
  <span>and “make it, Sena, make it appear!” as if he could just open a jar of inspiration and hand it to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi combs his fingers through his hair in a motion that comes as natural as breathing, even if he complains about his lack of manners and how much he weighs. Leo just smiles, being the insufferable annoyance that he is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Sena.” he says, without minding that he’s interrupting him. Izumi would frown, but the sleeve of Leo’s uniform is riding up and showing a patch of skin marked in white flowers. And he knows what they mean now, because Naru mentioned it once. Lotus. How fitting. “Do you know that you smell like the moon again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Izumi can feel himself flush, and so he takes the only logical solution to the explosion of feelings into his chest: trying to suffocate Leo by planting his hand into his face and pushing down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At least say something that makes sense, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>idiot</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leo laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes something more beautiful than any flower bloom into Izumi’s chest.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>-whispers.- I don't like how this one came out at all but I might write something more about this AU, so. ANYWAY.</p><p>WORLDBUILDING NOTES BECAUSE I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL:</p><p>- The title is because wildflowers don't stop growing, even if someone steps on them.<br/>- Leo being represented by lotus is an idea of my friend Lio. I love her character study of Leo, so I appeared in her chat like: HEY IF HE WAS TO BE A FLOWER... So. Shoutout to @ AinSourAur in twitter. Thank you lots.<br/>- He's a lotus because they grow from the mud, but still bloom beautifully.<br/>- Izumi's being forget-me-nots have lots to do with the fact that 1. I like him in blue and 2. They have always seem graceful to me idk.<br/>- I read somewehere that forget-me-nots smell gets stronger by night, but I don't know if that's true. Anyway. That's what Leo's last quote is about.<br/>- Platonic soulmates are a thing too!! They have other way of recognizing themselves tho.<br/>- The Ritsu bit is about his relationship with Mao. That's just. Complicated. (aka please wait for me to write something about it.)</p><p>Anyway!! I don't know if I'll have the time to post something more this week, but I hope you all have fun! Keep up the good work!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>